The Lich's Tale
by Ivar Hugo
Summary: The story of Milo, the halfling mage so in love with power that he would turn into a lich. But the search for power draws powerful attention, and Milo has piqued the interest of a powerful being indeed: Verona, greatest of the children of Bhaal.
1. Ascension

Milo Tosscobble always considered himself a practical man.

Once he displayed a talent for the arcane, he petitioned to join the Cowled Wizards, rather than apprentice himself to a halfling luckstealer, since the former offered a young mage superior opportunities for research and political advancement. But halflings were scarce in the ranks of the cowls, and not widely respected, and Milo, not one to be distracted from what really mattered, struggled to stir no antagonisms during his early studies, and focused instead on building his power (time enough to settle scores in the future). And it was always, as far back as he could remember, the promise of power that allured irresistibly. Even as a mageling, Milo knew himself well enough to know he could spend an eternity in pursuit of it, and he would never tire or grow bored. Since one lifetime cannot encompass infinity, several were needed to satisfy; in the end, it was only practical that he seek immortality.

There were ways to forestall the ravages of old age, methods to preserve flesh and blood and bones, but even were Milo to succeed with such a scheme, he would still be vulnerable to violence. With sufficiently powerful resurrective magics, he might recover from bodily death, but then he would have to rely on others to bring about his return to the living, and that was too much of gamble for Milo. Or, he could bargain with fell powers for eternal youth, but such deals seldom worked out in the petitioner's favour, and it would bring powerful attention to him, which could be troublesome.

But, when he really thought about it, it was not everlasting youth that Milo yearned for, and not even life that Milo valued above everything else, not really; power is only incidental to life, after all. No, not life, but mind and existence, the wellsprings of all power, were what really mattered. Consequently, his thoughts turned to death, and how to transcend it by embracing it; to become undead.

Vampirism was considered and rejected; it would necessitate enslaving himself to an undead master, which was unacceptable—power without freedom is a logical contradiction. Furthermore, vampirism came with a host of difficulties Milo would rather do without—he liked eating his mother's garlic-stewed chicken out in the sun, for one thing. Becoming a ghost was not an option either, as Milo suspected he would no longer be himself after the transformation, and would therefore be no better than dead. There remained only one viable option: lichdom.

The path was clear, and Milo had a goal.

He trained himself as an archaeologist, giving him a socially acceptable reason to venture deep into old tombs, there to search for ancient knowledge to guide his research. His studies encompassed recondite spells and rituals, anatomy and medicine, and funerary rites and religion; knowledge expected of a man of Milo's chosen profession, certainly, but more importantly, opening up other avenues of exploration, which might otherwise have drawn unwanted attention: necromancy and mind control, poison and disease, cults of death and ritualistic sacrifice.

All this secrecy was necessary, for there were not many who would be sympathetic to Milo's project; even fewer would be willing to provide assistance. This presented a problem, because Milo was not arrogant enough to believe that he was always right, that he never needed correction or critique. Since there was no one to whom he could entrust his secrets but himself, the solution was obvious: he would summon an intelligent familiar to act as his sounding board and research assistant. Milo decided an imp would serve his purposes nicely.

Familiars are but aspects of their masters' minds, so the very magic that animated them would make disloyalty impossible. But devils are devious by nature, so Milo had to be careful. In preparation, Milo immersed himself in infernal contracts for over a year, and when time came to perform the ritual to make an imp his familiar, Milo was ready to dictate the terms of their partnership to his advantage. Thus was Synigoros bound to Milo's service; time proved the little fiend to be a good counsellor.

During his research, Milo came to understand that there were no standard procedures that would turn him into a lich. Bodies, minds and souls were different, and what worked for one might destroy another. Regardless of the method employed, there were some things that would always need doing: his body had to be ready to transition into undeath, and a receptacle—a phylactery—had to be constructed, to hold his soul once he had ripped it out from his body.

He began to inure his flesh to the transformation to come.

Self-inflicted poison and disease brought him up to the very edge of death, and hammer and spell broke every bone in his body. Mind-controlled minions pulled him back every time, stanched his wounds and made him whole, but not before he had endured hours of exquisite agonies.

With transmutation magic, he explored different forms, both common and monstrous, and wore many skins, those of humans and elves, angels and demons, beasts and birds, all for the purpose of gaining some wisdom of the flesh, to learn how to shed it.

Then, to prepare his mind.

He turned his most dangerous magic against himself.

Invasive illusions assaulted his psyche, tormenting him with horrific images of pain and terror.

Mind-bending enchantments forced him to think thoughts contrary to his own nature, just to get a glimpse of the madness of immortality, in the hope to inoculate himself against it.

And finally, worst of all, he girded his soul for the undead apotheosis.

Acting out every debauchery imaginable, he murdered and tortured, he committed blasphemy and sacrilege, he oversaw and participated in violations of both body and mind.

(As it turned out, the Cowled Wizards proved surprisingly accommodating of Milo's endeavours. At Spellhold, they encouraged experimentation, and Milo's practices wouldn't have drawn as much as a mild rebuke. However, Milo, being a practical man, didn't want notoriety, so he took care to be subtle, even as he took advantage of the Wizards' resources.)

When it came to put everything in order for the ritual, Milo encountered his first real obstacle. He knew full well that a mortal sacrifice would be required—he had done much worse in his service to the Cowled Wizards—but he learned much to his displeasure that the killing had to have some emotional resonance; the victim had to _matter_ to Milo personally. A dockside whore or alleyway thug wouldn't do this time. This complicated matters, because Milo wasn't a sadistic man; he didn't enjoy causing pain, nor did he revel in the depravities he committed in the furtherance of his research. Apparently, this restraint represented a tether that tied Milo to the mortal world—a tether that had to be severed.

The facts were in; it was only practical that Milo corrupt himself irredeemably.

Milo turned to contemplate who mattered most to him in the entire world. First, he thought of his family. He harboured no ill will towards his parents or siblings, but in truth they weren't much part of his life any more. Furthermore, as he prided himself on lack of sentiment, he preferred allies to friends, and liked tools even better. But tools make for poor sacrifices. No, there was only one person who would do: Oriseus, Milo's first instructor of magic.

In retrospect, the choice had been obvious, but Milo had been reluctant to admit it. The old man had always treated him well, and they still enjoyed the occasional reminiscence over food and spirits. Milo almost cried when he slipped the sleeping draught into Oriseus's wine.

Under cover of night, Milo moved Oriseus's unconscious body to his hideout in the sewers beneath the Temple District. Just a year earlier, Milo had found the most remarkable place: a walled-off section of the sewers the size of a mansion, complete with the furnishings of a master wizard. Besides the luxurious sleeping quarters, dining hall, chapel and common area, there was a vivisectionist theatre, a summoning chamber, a laboratory for spellcraft and enchantment, and, best of all, a modest but well-appointed library, brimming with tomes of arcane lore. It almost seemed too good to be true, but every divination Milo assayed indicated the place to be abandoned—following the previous owner's death, judging by the bloodstains. Milo thanked Tymora for his luck, moved in and made the place his own.

The chapel was repurposed for the ritual. Milo had an elaborate altar constructed, lovingly crafted from bone, tied together with sinew, and painted with blood. Upon the altar he placed Oriseus, whereupon Synigoros, Milo's imp familiar, began to anoint the body.

(A month earlier, utilising illusions, body-altering polymorph magic and various other trickeries, Milo had contrived to have Synigoros ordained as a minister of Kelemvor, god of the dead, so that the devil could preside over the ceremony and properly sanctify the altar for its heretical purpose).

His preparations had been extensive. To facilitate the transformation from living to undying Milo had inscribed runes on the floor to slightly weaken the barriers between the Negative Energy Plane and the Prime Material. To guide his soul to the right receptacle, Milo had made a path, drawn with silver in symbols of spiritcatching and soultrapping, beginning at the altar and ending at a pedestal, resting upon which was the object that would become Milo's phylactery.

It looked very simple: a small coin, with just a hint of silver visible beneath the grime and tarnish. Despite appearances, the coin was made of blood-forged meteoric adamantite, and the grooves along its edge were minutely etched with eldritch phrases. Milo planned to conceal it further once he had transformed by spinning a web of illusions around it and hardening it with all manner of abjurations; his phylactery was made to last.

"Master, I'm ready."

It was Synigoros who had spoken. Milo turned towards his familiar, who was hovering above Oriseus's body. At a nod from his master, Synigoros dropped his customary leer, suddenly looking as serene as was possible for his fiendish face. The imp donned the sombre robes common to the Kelemvorite faithful and made his way to the lectern, cleared his throat, and began speaking in the Celestial tongue, practically oozing piety as he preached.

"We recognize that death is part of life. It is neither an ending nor a beginning; not a punishment, but a necessity."

Milo put his staff to the side and began to slowly unbutton his vest.

"Death is not deceitful," continued Synigoros. "It does not conceal; it is not capricious. Help the dying face their deaths with dignity at their appointed hour."

The vest dropped to the floor, and then shirt underneath followed, baring Milo pale's chest, which was adorned with intricately inked tattoos.

"Speak out against those who do not listen to the bell's toll; resist those who seek to hasten death's coming for others, dissuade those who would hasten it for themselves."

Milo walked up to his unconscious mentor, lying in peaceful repose on the altar of blood. He considered waking Oriseus, to try to explain, but he realized that would only be for his own benefit, not his old mentor's. No; it would be better this way. Milo carefully drew the ceremonial knife.

"Do not honour the dead, but honour their lives! Their mortal toil made the realms what they are now! By living, they have delivered us!"

Milo plunged the knife into Oriseus's chest. A breathless gasp, a small shudder, and he was gone.

"To forget a life is to forget where we are and why!"

Now Milo pointed the bloodied knife at his own heart. This was the crucial moment. He didn't allow himself to tremble.

"Let no man or woman, no being who walks on the face of this world, die without the faithful at their side to guide them! Let no one die without the Judge of the Damned to watch over them!"

The knife went into his heart and Milo didn't feel a thing.

For an unbearable moment, he was numb all over. But then, a frisson of excitement that became an instant of pain, forcing Milo to his knees. The pain was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving in its wake a tingle at the back of his mind, crystallizing into a sensation of searing heat that arced from his brain to spine to fingers to knife to heart—bursting like a balloon pierced by the point of a spear—then to flee the lifeless vessel and leap into the void, taking all warmth with it.

For a moment, all the nerves in Milo's body screamed their agony at his brain; he felt such pain as he never could imagine, intensified and magnified beyond all proportion. He shut his eyes and clenched his teeth, but he couldn't even manage a whimper against the torture. And then the pain didn't feel like pain any longer.

To say that he felt alive would be a misnomer—'alive' was to what he felt as the shadow was to the sun—but whatever it was, he felt more of it than he ever had. Every sensation was more vivid, more real: the coolness of the stone beneath his feet, the softness of the fabric of his trousers, the wetness of the liquid seeping from the hole in his chest.

And then understanding flooded his mind: he saw connections he had never realized were there before; problems previously insoluble suddenly turned trivial; the dimmest memories now remembered with crystal clarity.

He knew then that he had succeeded. Milo Tosscobble had overcome death itself. The world would tremble before him.

Now, onwards to power. Milo opened his eyes.

What he saw wasn't anything he'd expected: a young human woman dressed like some peasant girl, standing by the pedestal, flipping a coin nonchalantly in the air.

Had Milo still been capable of fear he was sure he would be feeling it then.

She glanced up at him. "You're finished now?" she said. "Excellent."

"Wh—" Milo began, but then stopped himself. The sound was like a stranger's voice to his ears.

"Try again," she said. "I'm sure you'll find your tongue eventually."

He tried speaking again. "Wh—who are you?"

"We'll get to that soon enough, but first, I have something to show you."

She took a few paces towards him, crouched down to get level with his eyes, and held up the coin—his phylactery!—for him to see.

Tilting her head at him, she said, "Hmm, do you have something behind your ear?"

She moved her hand behind his head, made a twitchy motion, and brought her hand back into his field of vision; the coin was gone.

"Shoot, I must've mixed things up," she said, and smiled a smile colder than death.

Milo looked around frantically. "Where is it? What did you do with it?!"

"Now that would be telling. A magician never reveals her secrets and all that." The woman got up from her crouch and took a look around the room. "There was something else…what was it, what was it, I just can't—Ah, but of course! Will the honoured reverend please join us?"

From behind the altar emerged a small creature, a very familiar-looking rodent—Synigoros turned into a rat.

"Sneaky vermin," said the woman. "Felix will look after you."

And there was a cat, watching Synigoros-the-rat.

The cat hadn't suddenly appeared, because Milo had been looking, but must have been there all this time without being noticed. This was strange, seeing as the cat was white as snow.

To an outside observer, Milo showed no signs of fear—he didn't swallow, shake or sweat, didn't hold his breath or hyperventilate—but somewhere deep inside, in whatever shrivelled residue remained of his soul, he felt an existential dread like never before.

Were he alive, Milo would've cleared his throat, but his lungs held no air and his vocal chords could not vibrate to produce sound, so he simply willed his inquiry to take on the form of the spoken word. "What do you want?"

The woman didn't seem to have heard him. "Shall we go?" she said. "Oh, do get dressed first, will you?"

"I…I am bleeding," said Milo.

"Feel free to clean yourself up."

"Can I…?" said Milo, to which the woman replied by tapping her booted foot against the stone floor.

Milo didn't know if this was permission to use magic, but he chanced it and cast a quick spell to remove all blood and dirt that clung to him. After noticing that he was, in a sense, still alive, Milo put on his shirt and vest again. Though his flesh was dead, it hadn't had time to decompose; he should look like any regular halfling.

"Good! To the slums we go!"

"Do we…?"

"Yes, we walk there. And no more inane questions."

They left the sewer sanctuary, walking through the wards that were to Milo's best discernment untouched, and emerged from a grate into the light of the noontime sun shining down on them.

What struck him about walking in daylight for the first time since his rebirth wasn't so much a feeling as an absence of all feeling: no warmth on his skin, no reinvigoration of weary spirits, no irritation from light in his eyes—he could stare into the sun without discomfort—and no balm for Milo's troubled thoughts.

The woman had cast no spells and wore no weapons. She had made no direct threats. But the very fact of her presence and manner spoke to the danger Milo found himself in. He meekly followed her as she walked, with Synigoros and his feline keeper on their heels. She gave a cheery greeting to the priests of the Morninglord on their way out the Temple District; he hoped beyond hope the clerics wouldn't recognize him for that he was, and burn him from the face of Faerûn.

They walked through the Government District without the guards giving them a bother, then crossed the bridge with all its pirates and sailors, who for some reason or other decided not to harass a very good-looking woman with only a halfling for protection, and finally entered the slums. Though it was daytime, Milo wouldn't have walked these streets as brazenly as she did, but the thugs let them be. And then they arrived at the sight of the city, the planar sphere in the slums. Some years ago, the marvel had materialized from gods knows where into this space, neatly embedding itself in the surrounding buildings.

"We have arrived," said the woman. "Let us enter."

And then Milo realized who this woman was.

"You are Verona, the master of the sphere," said Milo, taking an involuntary step backwards. He had been wise to offer no resistance: Verona was infamous among the Cowled Wizards for casting spells on the streets with impunity, and slaughtering any Wizard sent after her.

Verona made a dismissive gesture. "No title necessary. Just Verona. Now in we go."

Milo ascended the stairs of a building bisected by the sphere, found his way to the level leading to the entrance to the sphere, and waited. Verona walked up to the door, a barely discernible outline on the surface of the sphere, and knocked three times.

A moment later, the door folded open before them, revealing the corridor inside.

"After you," said Verona.

As he stepped inside, he almost fell to his knees, such was the power of this place; the sphere was alive with magic, and seemed to pulse and throb along with the heartbeat of the planes.

But from what Milo saw of the interior of the sphere didn't seem to accord with this sense of power. Just beyond the door was a simple corridor.

"Disappointed?" said Verona, stepping up next to him. "You shouldn't be. This"—she waved her hand—"is mere convenience and illusion; only so much detritus clinging to a tornado. Maybe someday you'll see the real storm."

A few paces later, and they arrived at an antechamber where a young man was waiting for them.

"Morul!" said Verona. "Are the accommodations for our guest in order?"

The young man—Morul—eyed Milo fearfully. Obviously he was aware of what Milo had become. He said, "Yes, Master. All has been prepared according to your specifications."

"Well then, good," said Verona. "Morul, why don't you escort him there?"

Morul looked aghast at that suggestion. "But, Master, what if he were to—"

"Do what?" said Verona, interrupting Morul. "He's our guest; he will behave himself." Turning to Milo, she said, "You will, won't you?"

"Yes, certainly!" said Milo quickly. It was only practical he feign subservience, after all.

"There, that settles it," said Verona and clapped her hands together. But before she got a chance to leave, Morul spoke again.

"Please, Master!" he said. "He's…a lich! A powerful spellcaster! I don't think—"

He interrupted himself this time upon seeing his master's forbidding stare. They were silent for a few moments, and then Verona sighed.

"As you wish," she said and moved to face Milo. "Forgive a lenient master indulging her apprentice's baseless fears. First things first—"

Milo felt a rattle all over his body as every potion in his pockets, every wand secreted away on his person, his magical staff, his spellbook and scrollcase, his galoshes, cloak, and headband— _all_ of his magic items!—were stripped from him, bundled themselves into a neat package, and leapt to Verona's waiting hand.

"—you won't be needing those."

Verona snapped her fingers, and gone was the bundle.

"And, just to be on the safe side…"—the sound of a tremendous yawn, a feeling of all magic fleeing him—"…now stay still and do nothing until Morul tells you to do otherwise; you should then do as he instructs. Now, I imagine this will hurt a great deal…"

And a fire lit in Milo's mind as knowledge of spell after spell burned itself from his memory. And, from somewhere beyond the inferno raging in his skull, a voice—"I can't be bothered to wait, take it from here"—and a pop followed by silence. The flames continued to burn.

After some time—maybe an instant, maybe an eternity—there was another voice.

"Please, get up. I…would rather not touch you."

Milo noticed he had fallen to the ground. He looked up and saw Morul leaning in over him.

"What did she do to me?" he demanded.

Taking a step back, Morul said, "Spell worm and disjunction, I think. Hmm, strange, I wouldn't have expected the spell worm to affect the undead…Anyway, you should follow me."

"And if I don't?" said Milo with a baleful stare at the human boy.

Morul didn't shy away from Milo; he had regained his confidence, it seemed. Waving at the hulking metal monstrosity standing someways back by the wall, Morul said, "Then this golem here will smash your body to splinters, and you'll reform in some days hence next to your phylactery, at a place of my master's choosing."

Milo couldn't argue with that logic, so he got up to his feet. "Lead the way then."

"Good," said Morul, and spoke some words at the golem Milo couldn't understand. The mighty machine responded by moving up to Milo with dispiriting speed and grace. "Let's go."

As he followed Morul, Milo took note of the sphere's interior. They walked past what must have been magic laboratories, libraries and workshops of all kinds, where apprentices, scholars and craftsmen milled about, carrying out whatever work Verona had them do. Milo quickly realized the sphere must be larger on the inside than on the outside.

Curiosity warred with his sense, but he just had to know. "How did she do it?" asked Milo as they walked.

Morul took a moment to think before responding. "Master Verona is more than capable of defeating powerful liches—she has done so on numerous occasions—but the older they are, the more arrogant and uncooperative, and the less amenable to reason. No, she needed someone not yet turned insane, someone ambitious enough to undergo the transformation in youth, without having taken the time to come fully into their power. Someone like you, Mister Tosscobble. Master Verona has been on the lookout for a specimen like yourself for some time now. I understand you took admirable precautions, given the resources available to you, but against a wizard of my master's calibre, there was little you could do to escape her notice. Especially considering the legion of spies she has among the Cowled Wizards."

One word Morul had said disturbed Milo. "A 'specimen', am I? What will happen to me?"

"You will be placed in an anti-magic cell," said Morul, who continued walking, not looking back. "When the master comes around to it, she will perform experiments on you. To see how undeath works. You can expect your body to be destroyed soon; I believe Master Verona first wants to figure out the rejuvenation process. To forestall any ill-advised attempts at escape you might be contemplating, I should remind you that Master Verona has your phylactery, you have no spells or magic items, and the golem is instructed to break you into small pieces on the first sign of mischief. Besides which, I also imagine the sphere won't let you leave."

"What does it matter, if I can only expect imprisonment and degradation from here on?"

"You imply you would resist just to inconvenience us?"—damn the boy, thought Milo, he sounded amused—"It's not wise to spite the master. Believe it or not, you are accorded a rare respect by being allowed to walk to your cell. Had she desired it, she could have transported you there directly from your ritual chamber."

"And why didn't she?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe she wanted to observe you for a while in the wild, or maybe it amused her that she could lead you to your imprisonment voluntarily, without overt coercion—why, she considered sending an actress in her stead, to see if you could be bluffed all the way to your cell, but I guess prudence won out in the end. Regardless, I try not to second-guess my master's merciful moods."

There had to be something, anything, he could do to escape. Milo was a practical man, always ready to turn a situation to his advantage, do what needed to be done, and—ah!—an idea came to him. He started to look around furtively, in ready search for…

"Looking for the rat?" said Morul, actually deigning to glance over his shoulder at Milo this time. "Your imp is being held in separate confinement. My master is interested in exploring how the bond between master and familiar functions after the transformation into a lich."

And that was when all thoughts of struggle and refusal left Milo. There was nothing he could do. It was only practical he resign himself to his fate, and follow in Morul's footsteps without further comment or complaint.

After a few more yards of walking, Morul stopped, and indicated some stairs leading down to a door. "This is where you'll spend your time for the foreseeable future." He walked down, opened the door, and waved for Milo to walk through the doorway.

As he entered the room, Milo took a moment to observe his cell. "It's…not quite what I expected."

The best way to describe the room would be that it began as a large stone-walled chamber until it reached a silvery line on the floor, at which it sharply transitioned to four rooms in cross-section. First, a bedroom suite; second, a well-furnished study, complete with a desk and full bookcases; third, a room of workstations with all manner of artisans' tools on display; and fourth, a completely bare room, surrounded on five sides by stone.

"Morphic rock," said Morul as he walked up to the silvery line, and rested his hand against an invisible barrier. "Turned transparent, at the moment. Everything contained within is dead to all magic." He tapped the barrier with a small rod. "Now you can step inside."

Milo obliged Morul, and stepped over the line. As he did, he felt the disquieting sensation of being cut off from something that had always been there before. His magic was denied him, completely and utterly. Another tap, and Milo was caught.

"As you can see," said Morul as he put away the rod, "my master can be generous if the mood strikes her. If you aren't needed for experimentation, you're free to pursue research or crafts as you wish. Furthermore, the sphere has an extensive library, and you may borrow rarer tomes, conditional on good behaviour, of course. I suggest you resign yourself to the fact of your confinement with dignity, and accede to any and all requests Master Verona demand of you. Doing other…would not be in your best interests. Strictly speaking, obedience is beside the point; Master Verona is more powerful than you can imagine—this is no exaggeration, believe me—and if she grows impatient with your intransigence, she can simply compel your compliance."

"You have first-hand experience with that, do you, boy?" said Milo, voice weary with bitter humour.

Morul simply smiled. "I've always been a well-behaved apprentice. Good day to you."

Thus was Milo left to his own devices. He had to admit, this hadn't been an auspicious start to his quest for ultimate power.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading. Verona is what I imagine a chaotic neutral mage player character might become if they choose not to become a god at the end of the Throne of Bhaal. This doesn't mean she lacks ambition (quite the contrary), as might become evident if I publish more. I have bits and pieces of more stories, but nothing entirely coherent. As for now, this story stands as a one-shot.

Any and all reviews are welcome and appreciated.


	2. To Fight Monsters

There was no peace in captivity for Milo. Life, if you could call it that, in his unnaturally illuminated cell had unmoored him. He lacked for windows, but even had he been able to see the outside world, Milo wasn't sure he could make sense of what he would see. For all he knew, time flowed differently inside the planar sphere that housed him. Combined with the change in perspective that came with undeath, this made for a fragile existence.

In an effort to forestall insanity, Milo had given up trying to mark hours or days, but instead tried to make sense of time's arrow by counting the number of times his body had been destroyed and reformed in the course of Verona's experiments. He kept tally by composing an epitaph for each death and resurrection, in commemoration of each life lived in-between. Thus far, he had written twenty-seven.

Once, in one of the earlier cycles, Milo had offered Verona more insolence than had been wise. With a casual wave of her hand, she had set Milo on fire. While he was within the anti-magic field. As a final indignity, she'd been bored of his panicked flailing about and had left before he burned to ashes. In time, the sheer impossibility of what Verona had done had tormented Milo more than the flames. Milo had strived to be more circumspect in his impudence since then.

He occupied himself with former pastimes and passions, crafts and research. He studied theology, arcane theory, planar cosmology; he fashioned complex contraptions, locks and clocks made from bone, mechanical maps of the celestial spheres and planes; and he concocted a great variety of tinctures, ointments, potions, elixirs and spagyrics.

"What are you making?" Morul had asked him once, on one of the occasions he came to visit.

Verona's apprentice was a boy desperate to grow into a man. He was tall, but he carried his height with the characteristic awkwardness of the adolescent, and he was so thin that when he wore his robes, he looked more like a coat-hanger than anything else. A few wisps on lips, cheeks and chin bore witness to a failing struggle to grow a beard, and his manner conveyed in all aspects eagerness and nervousness, no matter his show of patience and calm.

"This and that," Milo had finally replied.

An interval of time passed, spanning a number of heartbeats, blinks of the eye, breaths held in anxiety or released in relief—Milo had difficulty telling which, such metaphors having lost their force with him grown beyond mortal trappings—and then Milo spoke again,

"What are you smiling about?"

To which Morul offered in reply, "Play coy with me all you want, Mister Tosscobble. Though I caution you: do not think to try such games with my master."

"I would think you are as tired of issuing such warnings as I am of hearing them. But then I remember, for such as you, who only wields power by the leave of others, there is no recourse but to use your master as a prop to threaten when you don't get what you want."

That wiped the smirk off Morul's face and the boy left in a huff.

Had Milo felt more charitable, he might have responded more truthfully. He did what he did for many different reasons: to answer questions, to while away the time, to give his existence some meaning, and to spite his captor by not giving up.

Four epitaphs later, Verona herself paid Milo a visit. This time, the master of the sphere was dressed in all her terrifying finery.

Garbed in ornate robes spun from yellow and scarlet, bedecked in full regalia—the rings on her fingers too severe in their designs to be purely ornamental, the staff in her hand shod in iron and marked with eldritch symbols, a halo of a dozen ioun stones whirling around her head, upon which the jewelled circlet rested, a golden crown on golden curls—she looked like nothing less than the avatar of the goddess of magic herself, smiling pleasantly at him, her eyes glowing with an unnaturally intense shade of blue. Strangest of all, she wore her new appearance as casually as she had the commoner's dress it had amused her to wear on their first meeting.

But Verona's attention was a fleeting thing. She soon grew bored with listening to Morul's summary of recent experiments, which he was reciting at tedious length, and she turned away from Milo to speak to her apprentice. Very soon, she was regaling him on what appeared to be her favourite topic—that would be the hows and whys of the killing of monsters—and just when she was getting worked up on how very much she wanted to kill something called an 'aboleth,' she suddenly decided to inflict an impromptu interrogation session upon the fool boy, for 'educational purposes', or so she avowed.

"And illithids, Morul?"

"Illithids, master?"

"You should know this already."

"Ah, well, ah…"

"Speak clearly so that I might understand you."

"Yes, master. Colloquially known as 'mind flayers'—or 'devourers' by the dark elves—illithids are humanoid aberrations possessing immense mental powers, living in the sunless depths of the Underdark…"

"True in general but not by necessity. There was a sizable cell here in Athkatla, in the sewers beneath the temple district. They were planning to infiltrate and subvert the nobility and seize control of the city."

"…and what…?"

"What happened? Well, let's reason it out. Suppose I was telling the truth. What does that entail?"

"'There _was_ a sizable cell,' 'they _were_ planning to infiltrate'; past tense. So… you defeated them?"

"Or they succeeded in their schemes, and we are all unwitting subjects of mind flayer masterminds."

"If so, not everyone, because _you_ would know, given the conditional, which would imply you either let it happen, or…"

"Yes?"

"Or that you are in league with them."

"Have you exhausted all possibilities? Perhaps I set myself against the illithids' plots, but failed to stop them? Or that I myself am controlled by them?"

"Neither possibility ever occurred to me, master."

"For future reference, I prefer thoroughness to flattery."

"Yes, master."

"You may ponder the likelihoods at your own leisure, but assuming I did eradicate the illithids, how would I have gone about it?"

"Yes, ah, by remaining focused and clear-minded at all times, and by swiftly arraying summoned forces against them, preferably creatures impervious to their psionic attacks, most likely constructs and undead."

"And then?"

"And then you pressed forward."

"And why would that work?"

"Because illithids are abject cowards at heart; they will falter at the first sign of the tide turning against them."

"Very good. Solars."

"Umm, I beg your pardon?"

"Solars: foremost in the angelic choir, emissaries of the gods, champions of Elysium; haloed and feathery-bewinged, armoured in gold and virtue, wielding burning swords and golden bows firing slaying arrows; their every word is like a pronouncement from high above, delivered in great booming voices."

"Oh… ah, did you, ah, really fight one of those?"

"Whether or not I did is irrelevant to this exercise; you never know when you need to kill something, so you need to know how to kill anything. But in answer to your question: yes, one fallen far off its lofty perch. The same as the regular kind, just more vicious, and no less sanctimonious."

"I see…"

"Well?"

"I confess, master, that I do not know how to kill a Solar."

"They are annoyingly tough, I'll grant them that. I'd say if you're unprepared—"

"—an unprepared wizard is a dead wizard, master!"

"—yes, good that you remember. Anyway, as I was saying, _if_ you happen to be unprepared, and if by dint of grace, luck or providence you're still alive to act and the Solar hasn't dimensionally locked you yet, I'd consider retreat. You know, live to plan to kill another day. Of course, if you're so fortunate, the problem is no longer interesting, as it admits trivial solutions. Yes, I'm expecting you to talk now."

"I still don't…"

"This isn't a trick question; no need for excessive cleverness here."

"Ah, um, ahem, yes: bind, call and summon a horde sufficient to overwhelm it?"

"Yes, precisely! And the moral?"

"Anything can be defeated if you bring enough company?"

"More general than that."

"Ah, I know! Give a wizard time to prepare, and all problems have trivial solutions!"

"Excellent! You're catching up. This, incidentally, is the reason why any wizard expecting to live past her nth fight makes damned sure she's never surprised, and if she's surprised, that she doesn't die, and if she does die, that she doesn't stay dead for long."

"Yes, master."

"So, one more go-around: how do you kill a Solar in an interesting way?"

"But, didn't we just…?"

"And here I thought you were keeping up."

"Well, umm, 'interesting' as in 'not going into the fight expecting a Solar'… so… besides taking every precaution and assaying whatever contingencies are available… not painting yourself into any particularly vexing corners with foolhardy spell selection and gear, in other words ensuring that you are ready to face diverse and varied challenges… of course being vigilant of surprise and ready to unleash spellfire should it come to battle… and… yes, that's it, I have absolutely no idea how to kill a Solar."

"Tut-tut, apprentice, I expected better from you."

"I'm sorry, master. Ah, please… how do you kill a Solar, if you don't expect to fight one?"

"Simple. Freeze time to make up for your lack of preparation. Layer your defences. Gate in whatever muscle you require. Block all avenues of escape. Resume the normal flow of time. Easy as pie."

"With respect… I can't do any of those things."

"Ah, well, then I guess you die."

"Huh."

"This gives me an idea for your next assignment. Think of a solution to the Solar-killing problem that's within your current capabilities to implement. Don't speak to me again until you have it, but don't tarry overlong; I'm not above bringing a Solar here and compelling it to battle you. Yes, I'm being serious. Don't look at me like some negligibly-witted wandless vermin! Go be a wizard. Ah, but now I'm reminded we have another wizard to ask for counsel."

Milo had remained silent throughout the exchange, in the hope of escaping Verona's scrutiny, and he had been so entertained by her grilling of her pathetic puppy of an apprentice that he was startled to notice that it was him that she had referred to, and that she had turned her chill gaze upon him.

Collecting himself, Milo said, "Would you like my thoughts on how to kill Solars?"

"That is Morul's assignment, not yours," said Verona. "And it wouldn't be fair to you; such manner of monsters are somewhat outside your area of expertise, isn't that so?"

There was something in Verona's tone of voice that worried Milo. He had found it practical in such situations to be cautious and honest.

"That's true," he said.

Verona's smile grew wider. "However, you happen to be qualified to answer questions about certain other creatures. Uniquely qualified, even."

Realizing it would be supremely unwise to be silent, Milo made a noise issue forth from himself, approximating the "Ah…"-sound a mortal might make involuntarily as conversational filler—a purely temporizing measure for Milo, as his body was no longer flesh and blood, but an undead construct stitched together by magic, animated solely by his will, and however much it might seem a lapse in concentration, it afforded a moment for Milo to think, to weigh and consider alternatives in an instant, faster and with more clarity than any mortal could—from which followed with no discernible pause what to external observers might sound like:

"You speak of my being a lich, of course. Against a lich, cold and electricity will avail you nothing; blades and arrows, even if they are magically sharp, work poorly against its dead flesh; and the holy scourge of a priest's power, though effective against lesser undead, finds little purchase. As with all undead, mind controlling and transfigurative magic is futile, as is poison and plague. Though liches aren't natively protected against acid and fire, it is wise to remember that all liches are powerful spellcasters, so they might have girded themselves against such weaknesses, and the same with hammers and maces, which otherwise might serve to crush the lich's bones. I would advise one studies the lich one hopes to kill before challenging it, so as to learn its particular strengths and weaknesses and prepare accordingly."

As he spoke, Milo took care to observe Verona's reactions. To his dismay, she seemed more amused than impressed, and she gave no indication that she was satisfied or that she wanted to respond, so Milo continued talking.

"But I wouldn't presume to any expertise on liches everywhere; you mentioned my unique qualifications, by which you meant me. So the question becomes, what advice would I give on how to defeat me. To that question, I say, with the usual caveats as to blind spots and lack of self-knowledge and so on, that I'm particularly skilled in the binding and summoning of monsters. Therefore, it would be prudent, if possible, to prepare banishing and dimensional-blocking magic, so as to deny me my main advantages. It goes without saying that one must keep in mind that I'm a wizard, and therefore I'm not bound to one strategy, but my options are as plentiful as the spells recorded in my spellbook."

Without any noticeable change in expression, Verona's smile had somehow contrived to change, from just before the beginning of Milo's oration up until the present moment, from predatory to amused to bored to impatient. Milo knew well the danger of being the cause of Verona's boredom; he didn't want to find out what came of being the subject of her impatience. With growing desperation, he launched further into self-incrimination.

"But you know all of this, of course, having observed me prior to my capture. So, what might be useful to know is my current plans and activities. What thought have I given to escape? What plots of revenge have I put into motion? As my magic is denied me, I have had to make do with the other tools at my disposal: the knowledge contained in my mind and the books available to me, and the materials provided for me for crafts and what I might make with them. I considered fashioning some implement hard and strong enough, with which to break the physical barrier containing me herein. At the moment, I lack the skill to create what I need, but even so, I'm uncertain as to the precise characteristics of the physical barrier and what safeguards might be in place. Looking at other options, I considered making an explosive powerful enough to blast me to my freedom, but many of the same drawbacks apply to this option as well: present lack of skill and knowledge of countermeasures. Furthermore, even provided I managed to make something sufficiently destructive, I do not know how I would avoid destroying this body, meaning I would rejuvenate in proximity to my phylactery, which you possess."

Verona now deigned to speak, and said, voice dripping with icy contempt, "While it is mildly diverting watching you squirm, the lack of novelty is beginning to wear to thin."

"So, let's see if I understand you," said Milo, finally giving in to the frustration and anguish he felt, "you are not only asking me to sabotage myself, you are asking me to impress you at the same time?"

For a very short moment, Verona's smile looked genuine, but it was gone just as quickly.

"Yes," she said simply. "Speak, now."

"To break through all my constraints, known and unknown," said Milo, slowly, giving himself as much time to think as he dared, "for that, only one thing suffices: magic. But inside this cell, magic is impossible… or…"—a sliver of memory, a flash of insight—"or is it? You set me on fire when I annoyed you some epitaphs ago. It was not regular fire, for it wouldn't be smothered and it didn't spread beyond my body, even with all the dry parchment lying around. So… magic _is_ possible within this cell, I must only…"

Here Milo trailed off. He didn't know how to finish that sentence. To use magic within an anti-magic field… it beggared the imagination. He might as well prove that he didn't exist.

"Oh," said Verona, _now_ decidedly delighted, "is _that_ how you'll escape? Why didn't you say so earlier? I would only be so happy to oblige."

She snapped her fingers and a scroll furled itself into existence before Milo's eyes and fell into his lap.

"Learn that spell," said Verona, "and you can cast magic within an anti-magic field." She smiled so widely now, she seemed on the verge of breaking into giggles. "Ah, Mister Tosscobble, it might surprise you to learn that there are several solutions to this problem you chose for yourself, this spell being the least of them. This problem happens to be of particular interest to me, and perhaps some time in the future—how would you put it, many epitaphs hence—when and if you ever delve into the deeper mysteries, you might be able to help me solving it completely. Until then."

And with those words Verona departed, leaving Milo in his cell, with Morul still remaining in the viewing area.

"You are very good at slinking into the background, boy," said Milo.

Startled for a moment by being addressed, Morul went on to say, "I seem to remember you trying to be very inconspicuous a few minutes ago."

"Point."

Milo unfurled the scroll in his lap, curious about this miraculous spell that could do the impossible. He began to read, but it quickly dawned on him the challenge he faced. A spell, any spell, was an abstract concept that a wizard held in its entirety within his mind, all the while being fully cognizant of the features that make up the spell, along with the full nuances implied but unexpressed in the spell's definition. With a gesture and some spoken words—in the arcanist's parlance, verbal and somatic components—those implications would be realized: the spell would be cast. The description of this spell that the scroll contained, which would tell him how to hold the definition in his mind… Milo didn't even know if he was looking at a bunch of formulae or a diagram or something else entirely. On his first reading, there was not a single familiar concept alluded to, which Milo might leverage into understanding.

Once during his apprenticeship, his master Oriseus had showed Milo the scroll of a spell of the ninth circle, the highest tier of magic permitted mages by the goddess of magic Mystra since Karsus's Folly. This was the power of the spell in Milo's lap. As it was now, at his best, Milo might be capable of magic of the sixth circle.

With a shudder, Milo allowed the scroll to re-furl itself. He looked up at Morul.

"I wonder, boy," said Milo, "which of us is more truly fucked."

Morul had been white-faced ever since given his Solar-killing task by Verona, and now managed to look paler still. "I have no idea. All I have right now is, maybe I can throw some dust in its eyes and stab it in the face?"


	3. Demon

Now, onwards to power.

The first to fall to Milo's influence were the goblin gangs and kobold clans infesting Athkatla's sewers. Swathing himself in illusions, he appeared before them wearing the guise of avatars of their respective deities, Milo's magic quickly convincing them of the truth of his divinity. Gone were their previous scavenging existences, replaced by the purpose and order of Milo's rule. In gratitude, they delivered the sewers to his dominion. A good first step.

Then followed the thugs at the docks, who had thought the sewers convenient cover for their smuggling. Their obedience Milo secured not through superstition, but more directly with enchantments worked on their minds. Brutish of brow as well as of manner, none would notice the hidden influence behind their actions. They would serve well as Milo's muscle and enforcers of his decrees.

Now Milo could begin in earnest to manipulate commerce in the city, by which means he ensnared the slavers in his web. In their desperation to re-establish business after recent setbacks, they happily acquiesced to conditions that at first glance seemed beneficial, but in the end made them dependent on Milo's goodwill. Fetters forged from coin may gleam with a golden sheen, but they are heavier than iron and no less restrictive.

With the flesh trade Milo gained soldiers perfectly placed to wage a war of information against the true rulers of Athkatla's underworld: the Shadow Thieves of Amn. It wasn't a fair fight, really; the Shadow Thieves never knew they were in a war in the first place. Their schemes and plots mysteriously began to fail, betrayed by boastful tongues in every brothel and bathhouse, loosened by liquor, free to wag indiscretions at every sympathetic whore and harlot willing to listen. And listen they did, and then report to Milo.

It took surprisingly little effort to manoeuvre the paladins of the Most Holy Order of the Radiant Heart into open opposition with the Shadow Thieves. Milo shared an enthusiasm with the Order for lawful government, and they eagerly acted on the information Milo supplied them. A few well-choreographed provocations was all it took to escalate; soon, the streets ran red with paladin and shadow thief blood.

By this time, Milo's blackmail of the nobility was bearing fruit, and the strength of the army and city guard was joined to the Order. Within half a year, the Shadow Thieves were eradicated, and Milo's puppets on Amn's ruling council ascendant.

With the resources of one of the most prosperous cities in the world at his disposal, Milo soon grew engorged with power: economic power, from the merchant guilds plying Milo greed with gold; political power, from his mouthpieces on the council propped up by the support of the people who prospered under the agreeable yoke of Milo's rule; and finally magical power, gained from raiding the libraries of spells of Milo's rivals among the Cowled Wizards. It was time to dispense with pretence.

The ceremony was one for the ages. It was held in the old hall of the Radiant Heart, the Order having effectively died out from casualties suffered during their heroic crusade against the Shadow Thieves, with all the land's nobility in attendance. Milo himself was resplendent in imperial purple, crowned with mithral, and when the evening was done, declared god-king of Amn, ruler in perpetuity of its lands, colonies and provinces.

Milo's first decree was to make Amn whole again. Crush the ogres of the Sythillisian Empire, who had presumed to gnaw off the southernmost areas of Amn for their own petty ambitions. Reclaim the traitorous cities who had defected to Tethyr, and demand from that sanctimonious 'ally' recompense for the insult of accepting them.

Milo's second decree was for his people to pay him tribute by conquest. The people answered with gratifying assent, and soon Milo's armies were marching across Faerûn, bringing the disorderly realms to heel.

That's how it should have gone, _damn it._

 _To the grave he went,_

 _Falling to temptation,_

 _By confusing whim,_

 _With reconciliation._

Perhaps a little less linear, a little more swashbuckling…

Emboldened by undeath to explore new ways of living, Milo tried his hand at cat-burgling, which he found incredibly exciting, but, alas, proved none too adept at. After a bungled raid on a mage's library, he fled the wrath of the Cowled Wizards all the way to Waterdeep.

A brief stint as a black market scroll merchant later, he ventured to Silverymoon. Using forged credentials from the Lady's College, Milo posed as a magical instructor, wormed his way into the confidence of gullible wizards, gaining him access to their spellbooks. Escaping his marks, Milo joined the army marching towards Luskan, gathered to meet their most recent aggression.

Once setting foot in the City of Sails, Milo promptly betrayed his comrades and defected to the other side, joining the Arcane Brotherhood. He spent an entire month unearthing the secrets of the Host Tower before raising the ire of the Archmage Arcane, and in a dash he was off on a ship bound for Neverwinter.

The Bitch-Queen had other ideas, however, and the ship was blown off course, and somehow ended up in Calimshan. All for the best, as it gave Milo an opportunity to play a different game: the infiltration of a Pasha's palace. Chased out of Calimport by an angry fire-sorcerer, Milo crossed the Shining Sea, arriving at Lapaliiya, where he gave the natives even more reason to fear arcane spellcasters.

Next, it was Halruaa that beckoned, where a different tack was tried. He cultivated his scholarly reputation—became of a man of letters, wrote essays on magical theory—by which means he gained admission into more rarefied courts, eventually swindling his way into the towers of several Halruaan archmages.

Having whet his arcane appetite on such wonders, Milo hungered for even more delectable fare.

He dreamt of stealing into the academies of Thayan red wizards, to learn their infernal binding techniques and methods of elemental manipulation

He fantasized of participating in the great circles of the witches of Rashemen, to understand their style of spirit summoning

He envisioned raiding the oldest tombs and most ancient mausoleums, to master the mysteries of the old empires: Imaskar and Illefarn, Narfell and Raumathar, Cormanthor and Myth Drannor, and grandest of them all Netheril.

Milo had all of eternity to learn all magic the world had to offer; he could barely wait to go out and get it.

That would have been acceptable.

Instead he got _this_.

 _In memoriam Milo,_

 _Plaything of fate;_

 _In articulo mortis,_

 _A rotting state._

Or more traditional. Milo was a sucker for tradition.

He cloistered himself in his home in the sewers, devoting his undead energies to study and research. Now he had plenty of time to follow up on promising projects, and to focus completely on mastering the Art.

Naturally, the order of things demanded that others would seek to take what was his, so Milo planned accordingly.

His first line of defence were the illusions draped over his lair, subtle enough to prevent witless wanderers from stumbling into his domain, but not to turn away tomb-raiders lured there by the promise of easy treasure, rumours planted by Milo's own hand.

The second layer of security were the monsters whose service he compelled, and whose duty was dictated to be the defence—to their death—of Milo's stronghold.

Third were the ingenious and ostentatiously lethal traps he installed on every door, bookcase or chest (in other words, wherever adventurers might lay their grubby hands).

Fourth were the riddles and puzzles that were essential features of any self-respecting master wizard's dungeon.

Fifth and final was Milo himself, in all his reality-shattering power. He would feast on the intruders' wealth and knowledge, before finally devouring their souls.

Ah, such would have been a good unlife…

 _Since Milo the thirty-third,_

 _Died without writing a word,_

 _These lines so hastily done,_

 _Count for two rather than one._

Milo's daydreaming was interrupted by the sound of Verona's voice.

"Good morning to you, Mister Tosscobble!" said the master of the sphere as she descended the stairs to Milo's cell, accompanied, as always, by Morul.

Milo put down his quill and regarded his captors for a moment. Though Morul had schooled his face into calmness, his left hand worried at the hem of his robe and his eyes were darting to and fro. He kept taking short, agitated breaths, and he was swallowing more than usual. The boy was uneasy, plain as day.

Since embracing undeath, Milo had begun to notice these things, things which had previously been invisible to him. He had learned that living beings were predictable beasts. In thrall to base urges they couldn't control, their thoughts betrayed by every word and gesture, the truth of their intentions written as clearly in their faces as in their minds, mortals were more akin to automata than free-willed beings, though constituted by blood and bones instead of the gears of clockwork.

The master of the sphere was more difficult to read, however.

At times, what Verona thought was unambiguously apparent, and her emotions radiated from her in crashing waves. There was no confusing her anger, amusement or annoyance, and when you were its target, you felt it palpably. At other times, Verona's behaviour was that of a bad actor's approximation of a regular person: all superficiality and empty emoting, the cadence of her voice an affectation, the twitch of her facial muscles a performance, and the details of her body language an afterthought.

Now Verona seemed to be in good cheer, which seldom boded well for Milo.

"And a good morning to you as well," said Milo. "Though I will have to take your word for it."

"Not for much longer," said Verona. "You are to be released from your confinement."

No matter Milo's surprise at hearing those words, no matter his uncertainty as to what they meant, he knew from painful experience that Verona did not like having to repeat herself, so he decided to play along.

"Well, it's about time," said Milo.

"Indeed!" said Verona and gestured for Morul, who took a step forward, retrieved a rod from within the folds of his robe, and tapped it against the barrier that kept Milo locked in his cell.

"You may step out now, Mister Tosscobble," said Morul.

In a moment of rank madness, Milo entertained thoughts of defiance. It was a momentary lapse, however, and he settled for a smaller act of rebellion by taking the time to roll up the parchment he'd been writing on and put in a drawer—the need to keep a tidy desk outweighing the risk of pain—before complying with Morul's implied imperative and walked out of his cell.

As he did so, leaving the noxious anti-magic zone behind him, he felt a thrill in the very core of his being as his connection to the Weave re-established itself. Mistress Magic was his command once again. He didn't have his spellbook, so he was still cut off from his main source of power, but it was a start. A marvellous, marvellous start.

"Welcome back," said Verona. "Of course, we can't have you going around looking like you do… or at least Morul convinced me of as much."

Milo glanced down at his bare-boned self. Verona had flayed off his festering flesh during a previous experiment.

"And what do you suggest…" said Milo, trailing off when he saw the lumpy beige ball hovering beside Verona.

"I'm glad you asked," said Verona. "Be still; this takes some finesse."

The ball folded itself open in such a way as to call to mind the bloom of a rotten flower. The interior of the ball was a visceral, glistening redness, raw and moist with all manner of unsavoury fluid, convulsing as peristaltic waves rippled across its surface. For a moment it just hanged there, squirming in Verona's invisible grip, and then it enveloped Milo within itself.

At first, the sensation was not unlike getting into a wet pyjamas. But that comparison quickly lost its force when the wet fabric that clung everywhere began to feel less like cloth and more like Milo's own flesh, muscle and skin. Milo then experienced a shift in his perceptions, as if he had begun to sense the world at a remove; he saw with _eyes_ , felt with _fingers_ , tasted with a _tongue_. It was almost like…

"…walking in your own skin again?"

Milo looked up at Verona. "What did you say?"

Verona looked at him with a tolerant smile. "I asked how it feels to walk in your own skin again."

Suddenly Milo was startled at his own nakedness. _His_ nakedness. _This arm_ , he thought, _this skin, these fingers… they are mine._ Panic overcame him for a second, as he thought perhaps Verona had made him mortal again. But no. The skin he wore had once been his, he saw that now, but even though it seemed to have been grafted onto his skeletal frame, and even though it relayed sensations to his mind and obeyed his commands, it was not properly part of him any longer. And there was something perverse in the way the tissue seemed to slither around his bones, something debased about the skin's insinuating snugness.

"It feels great," said Milo.

"A curious bit of magic, that," said Verona as she looked over Milo's new body. "Closely related to shapeshifting. Powerful, I suppose, but I personally see little appeal in changing my appearance. I prefer that the world bend to my will, rather than the other way around." She drew back a little, wiped at her sleeve, as if the mere mention of such sorceries had dirtied her.

"And now," she continued, "my will is that you, Mister Tosscobble, lend your assistance to Morul, for whatever tasks he sets before you. You bragged earlier of your proficiency at binding and summoning; perhaps we'll find some small use for that talent."

Verona gave a nod to her apprentice, a last look at Milo, and then she disappeared in a puff of smoke.

With his captor gone, Milo felt free to seethe. He hated the way Verona's look lingered in his memory, how it made him shiver all over; hated that he didn't know if it was an engineered weakness of this new prison of skin that enclosed him, or if Verona could somehow strike terror into creatures who by all rights should be exempt from such mortal failings. And he hated that Verona hadn't even made any threats; hated that his obedience was simply assumed, that she didn't think there was any danger to letting him out of his cell. And most of all, he hated she was right in all her assumptions. Milo would go along with it all, because Verona had his phylactery, and she could crush him like a bug if she so desired.

Milo fixed Morul with his most imperious glare. "Boy, should I brazen this sphere in the flesh, or will you bring me some clothes?"

* * *

After he'd been appropriately attired—white-woollen breeches and shirt, a dapper vest in corduroy brown, a pair of fine leather boots—Milo was given a more in-depth tour of the planar sphere.

He was introduced to Nara, another apprentice of Verona's, a young human girl, earnest and eager to please. She administered the sphere's nested hierarchy of libraries. The collected lore was both wide-ranging in its subject matter and deep in its detail. There were not only separate libraries for natural philosophy, history, languages, cartography, theology, planar lore and magic theory, but sections and sub-sections for ever-narrowing specialities: one room dedicated to figment illusions, another to the flora and fauna of the Chultan peninsula; one room for the necrology of Old Illusk, another for dialects of elven; and so on. Each division came with its own set of tenders and sages, there to assist, collect, catalogue and research.

He was shown the workshops—alchemy, spellcraft, golem construction, item creation, and more—and the great furnace that powered them.

Then the lecture hall and communal eating area.

The scrying pool, a great circle at least ten feet across, upon the unnaturally still surface of which was currently displayed a bird's eye view of Athkatla.

The summoning chambers, of varying sizes to accommodate whatever creatures one cared to call there.

The size of it all was bewildering, but one thing caught Milo's attention.

"You have not showed me anything of the sphere's internal machinery," said Milo.

Morul was hesitant with his reply, but apparently his master had given him no orders to withhold this piece of information that he so very obviously wanted to share, so he proceeded to divulge what he knew and suspected.

"There is another layer to the sphere," said Morul. "However, Master Verona says that it's… dangerous to go there until we can repair it."

"The sphere's broken?"

"In a sense. I don't understand all the details, but from what I gather, the last jump fried the, ah, core of the sphere."

"If your master built the thing, shouldn't she be able to fix it?"

"Oh, Master Verona didn't build the sphere."

"She didn't? Who did?"

"A necromancer named Lavok, I believe."

"And where's he?"

"Well, uh, Master Verona killed him…"

"…and took the sphere. Of course she did."

* * *

Milo soon learned why Verona bothered to keep Morul around. The boy was a dab hand at the creation of magical items, and his 'primary purpose' [Verona's words] was to furnish her with such things as she required them. Apparently, enchantment of magical items was not part of the skillset of the master of the sphere. A useful thing to know.

* * *

"Where did she get all of this?"

"From the drow."

"Your master peddles metal with the dark elves?"

"Well, not exactly…"

"Say no more, I understand."

* * *

While Milo had resigned himself to servility (at least for the time being), it still unnerved him when he found a scroll of the _phantasmagoria_ spell serving as a bookmark in a sourcebook on the astral plane.

The _phantasmagoria_ spell ensnared its victim in a self-reinforcing illusionary world. In other words, the victim's sensory experiences would be under the complete control of the caster, and they might never know that their entire world was a lie.

Milo quickly realized that Verona could have cast this spell on _him_. Everything he saw, felt, smelt, heard, tasted—all of it—could be part of an elaborate illusion. And there could be traps within the illusion, tempting Milo to commit actions that would be construed as defiance. For instance, suppose Milo found a way to escape Verona's clutches—or worse, kill her—and he seized the opportunity…

It was within the realm of possibility that Milo's experiences were real and not illusory, but Verona had placed the scroll there deliberately for him to find (and she knew what books he was likely to read), in order to discourage rebellion, or just to mess with his head.

He could well imagine her doing either.

Or _both_ ; his experiences could be fake _and_ Verona could've placed the scroll there to taunt him.

Or neither, and it was just coincidence that he found the scroll. He couldn't be certain.

And it didn't even matter that as a lich, he should be immune to such illusions, because logical restrictions didn't seem to apply to Verona.

During his years among the cowls, Milo had cultivated a healthy paranoia. But now it was driving him to hysterics.

He settled the matter by kicking a rock, and then got back to his research.

* * *

"I have to know, why put up with her? What do you gain?"

"She's an incredibly powerful wizard. There's a lot I can learn from her."

"Really? And how much time does she spend teaching you, as opposed to berating you? Or ordering you about?"

"Eh, you see, well…"

"I thought as much."

"Now, wait a minute. I'm well-beyond mastering my cantrips—it's not like Master Verona has to drill me on the basics of magery. And I'm offered opportunities to learn things I couldn't elsewhere. My master can be generous; I have free perusal of her scroll collection, I get to experiment with top-notch equipment, and…"

"All right, good points, but that's not all there is to it—please, I'm no fool. You're a Cowled Wizard, like I am. What do they think of your association with Verona? I know her reputation."

"As I said, the benefits outweigh the—"

"Don't bother saying it. Yes, I might expect such a calculated move from certain kinds of individuals; not from someone like you. You're not bold enough—don't make that face at me, it's not an insult—so let's stop this game and just tell me the truth. Or not, and we get back to work, but spare me your rationalizations. Yes? I can see you want to tell me. Speak up."

"Do you know my master's history with the Cowled Wizards?"

"She apparently killed a lot of us."

"More than that. When she got here—uh, to Athkatla, I mean—she was given warning that only licenced mages were allowed to use magic. She defied that warning. Wizards were sent to apprehend her. She killed them. She continued flaunting the law against magic, and she kept killing those sent after her. Eventually, the Cowled Wizards sent their strongest numbers against her. To no avail; they died like all the others. At that point, there was no one who dared go up against her, so she was essentially free to do as she wished. That was when she chose to purchase the licence to use magic."

"Why am I not surprised…"

"And that was before I was assigned to Master Verona, as part of the reconciliation."

"They certainly didn't do you any favours."

"Yes, I learned all of this after I graduated. Apparently, my mother, Lady Zhamn Ophal, had made an enemy of a high-ranking Cowled Wizard. Her idea of revenge was to have me assigned to Master Verona, so that I would be tainted by association. No-one within the organization would work with me."

"So you went back to Verona."

"Yes."

"Let me guess: it was Khollynnus Paac."

"How did you know?"

"I recognize her work; it reeks of her characteristic spite."

* * *

"What does this tell you?"

"Let me see. Well, ah, it's an anchor for the Weave, that binds magic to the item."

"Really? Cast the identification spell again. Look closely at the illusion effect."

"Very well. But I don't see wh—huh, now that's… odd."

"My thoughts exactly."

"It _looks_ like an anchor for the Weave, it's just that something's…"

"…off about it?"

"Precisely. Where does it say this amulet was found?"

"Anauroch desert, I think."

"Strange indeed."

* * *

Every night, Milo was returned to his cell. He spent those lonesome hours deep in thought.

His restrictions had been eased—he had free range of the sphere, and had not been experimented upon since (maybe because Verona didn't want to damage Milo's new hide)—but that was not enough. It was contrary to his very nature to be caged; therefore, he had to attempt escape.

Perchance he might regain his spellbook. But even if he did, would it allow him to breach the defences around the sphere? Defences that had stymied even his superiors among the Cowled Wizards?

Maybe he could contrive to be re-united with Synigoros, and thereby benefit from his imp familiar's wise advice? But how much would that weigh in the balance, in the end?

Possibly he could learn the spell written on the scroll on his desk in front of him, the spell of the ninth circle that supposedly allowed spellcasting within an anti-magic zone. Never mind that the spell was magnitudes above him, what good would it do?

All lines of reasoning snarled around the same thorn: Verona.

Was it possible for Milo to kill her?

How, given that he didn't even know how strong she was, only that she was undoubtedly an archmage? To defeat such a foe, by whose own admission death was little more than an irritant…

There existed means of binding souls, of preventing resurrection. Or diverse methods of magical imprisonment, which locked a victim away—still alive, for a certain value of 'alive', but in no shape to retaliate.

But even Milo knew of countermeasures to all those things, and someone like Verona surely knew of more.

He could try to placate Verona. This would be the safest route, in as much as the word 'safe' meant anything around Verona.

And yet… Morul didn't seem to live in fear for his life. He was proof of the proposition that accommodations could be made with Verona.

"So, snivelling submissiveness it is?" said Milo.

He despised himself for not coming up with a better alternative.

* * *

It was at the stroke of midnight, on the day when Summertide gave way for Highsun.

Milo and Morul were labouring in a summoning chamber in the planar sphere. They were drawing an intricate circular shape, measuring approximately ten yards along its circumference, painted with the most extravagantly expensive dyes and oils.

The sound of footsteps, of a person entering the chamber.

"A minute, master," said Morul, for it could only have been Verona, and they were attending to a delicate task.

Morul prepared the argentite emulsion, and then, with a concluding curlicue from Milo, the figure was complete: a summoning diagram impressed on the floor of the chamber.

"And we're done," said Milo.

They carefully put away their brushes and jars of pigments, eased away from the wet paint to survey their efforts. "Yes, we're done," said Morul, visibly satisfied. They turned towards Verona.

And there she stood, uniformed in the gear of a battlemage: black robes over mithril and dragonscale. For all that she was ready and prepared for bloodshed, she wore a jovial smile on her face.

Milo and Morul shared an uneasy glance—both knowing that Verona's appearance, demeanour, indeed her very presence, portended something significant—and at once turned back to the summoning diagram they'd just finished drawing. Partly because both knew what was expected of them, and partly because Morul didn't want his master to see his shaking hands. The truth was that they weren't entirely done with their work.

Morul first spoke a quick spell to clear away every speck of dirt, particle of dust, smudge of paint, blot of ink and spot of moisture from the diagram. Then he assayed a more powerful transmutation, whereby the pattern of the paint was indelibly infused into the marble of the floor. At this juncture, he had to choose which magical trap to tie to the summoning diagram, a decision which hinged upon the type of creature to be bound. Looking at him, Milo could practically see the logic working its way through Morul's brain.

As per Verona's instructions, they had bordered the diagram with symbols derived from a combination of the Celestial and Infernal scripts. (The perversity of the pairing made the calligraphy an almost physically painful effort.) Taken together, this would represent a supreme symbol of antipathy for one manner of being: demonic.

Having arrived at his conclusion, Morul cast the magic circle, setting the trap.

Finally, he made it so that once the trap was sprung, whatever caught inside was prevented from escaping through magical means.

"Are you finished?" said Verona.

"Yes," replied Morul. There was nothing more to be done; only the summoning itself remained. "With your leave, master," he said and made for the door, but she stopped him with a gesture.

"Stay. Both of you. This should prove instructional."

Morul and Milo fell in by Verona's side. She in turn took a single stride forward, traced a circle in the air with her hand, and began speaking words of power—words Milo couldn't even begin describing, never mind transcribing—forming phrases that tore at the very space around them.

(She hadn't so much as glanced at their work—as far as Milo had seen—giving him the uneasy feeling that the protections and safeguards they had put into place were more for their benefit than hers.)

What followed were successive assaults on Milo's senses, each one more tremendous than the other. First, like some inverted lightning strike, there was a terrible clash succeeded by a bright blinding light; then, an overwhelming smell of rotten eggs followed by the great outrushing of wind that carried it; the taste of ashes and the pain of his tongue on fire; and then, a strike of the lash across his mind, words etched into his soul by acid, understanding burned in his awareness.

WHO DARES THIS SUMMONING? WHOSE SKIN SHOULD I FLAY FOR THE PRESUMPTION? WHOSE BONES SHOULD I BREAK FOR THE INSULT? WHOSE SOUL SHOULD I DEVOUR FOR THE DISRESPECT?

Standing before them was something that could have been borne from a child's fearful fancies. Cloven feet and massive bowed legs supported a hulking body seemingly made of fire and muscle, surmounted by a great horned head, the mouth a grin of daggers, the eyes black pits that drew in the light around them. A pair of wings, bat-like and bountifully spiked, sprouted from its back; in its one hand, a sword easily as long as Morul was tall, its edge gleaming with keen malevolence, in the other, a whip made of flames. And Milo felt the weight of all the beast's attention, focused upon him. At that moment, the wards— _Milo's wards_ —that supposedly kept that thing at bay seemed a flimsy veneer indeed.

WHAT AMUSING HUBRIS LED YOU TO THIS MADNESS, LITTLE LICHLING? NO MATTER. YOUR SOUL IS UNWORTHY OF ME, BUT I SHALL TAKE YOUR PITIFUL BODY AND THROW IT TO THE DRETCHES FOR THEM TO FEAST UPON YOUR FLESH—

"Demon, I am your summoner," said Verona, interrupting the excruciating deluge of words that was flowing into Milo's mind.

The demon moved as if struck. It had apparently not seen her, even though she was standing before it confident and killing-clad.

I… I SEE. WHY HAVE YOU BROUGHT ME HERE, YOU WHO MIGHT HAVE BEEN LADY OF MURDER?

"I require something from you."

YOU DESIRE A BARGAIN? VERY WELL, MY LADY. WHAT IS THY OFFERING? WHAT MANNER OF TITHE WARRANTS MY AID?

In response to that, Verona offered the abomination an indulgent smile, much similar to the smiles she gave her apprentices, when they had said something endearingly naïve.

"Oh, you misunderstand me. You're not here to make a deal; it's your presence I need, not your cooperation or consent."

There was a loud rattle and clanging as massive chains whipped out from holes in the summoning chamber's walls, wrapping themselves around the demon's limbs. These were chains of true-forged adamantine, and upon the manacles holding the demon fast were inscribed runes of magic negation. (Milo knew this because he participated in their construction and enchantment—an obscene expense.)

The fires that played across the demon's body died in an instant, not unlike a candle flame snuffed out by the wind. Its sword and whip clattered to the ground, the latter's fire extinguished as well, and the demon gave a guttural cry as it strained against its bindings, but to no effect. Instead, the chains tightened, splaying out the great and terrible creature as if an insect prepared for a microscopist's scrutiny.

"THIS WILL NOT STAND!" the creature roared, its words no longer appearing in Milo's mind but shouted, at ear-splitting loudness, in the common tongue. "I WILL DRINK YOUR BLOOD! I WILL GNAW ON YOUR BONES FOR AN ETERNITY! I WILL—"

"You will be quiet."

All sounds from the demon were unnaturally silenced, even as it gave every appearance of trying to bellow its displeasure for all to hear.

Verona turned to Milo and Morul, and said, "If you'd mind moving a bit to the side?"

At this point, Milo had become so numbed that the following events washed over him in a blur. Above it all, he remembered a great stretch consisting only of Verona's voice.

"Thank you, Morul, Mister Tosscobble. Golem! Enter. Step forward two yards; yes, stop there. With your left articulated appendage, take a firm hold of the hide beneath the arm there—a little higher, yes there—and hold it still, so as to minimize the torso's movement relative to your frame. Now, with your right articulated appendage—currently with the blade attached, yes that one—and place it point first just below the chin, holding it—the blade!—perpendicular to the torso. Upon my mark, increase the pressure against the hide gradually until you achieve a penetration of one feet; and, mark! Now move the blade downwards, maintaining a depth of penetration of one feet—and… stop. Detach the blade. Release your hold, yes. Place both your articulated appendages on the torso, and guide your digital extremities to the furrow you've made, approaching from opposing vectors along the curve of the torso, perpendicular to the furrow. Now, probe with your digits inside the furrow and take a strong hold. Now, tear it open; I mean, with your hold firm, exert gradually increasing force along opposing vectors perpendicular to the furrow, along the horizontal curve of the torso. Stop. Within the cavity, there is a mass about two feet in cross section, rhythmically contracting and expanding. Sever the connections to the mass from the surrounding tissue; with the blade, do it with the blade. There. Take the mass carefully—carefully!—and remove it from the cavity. Good. Place the mass inside the container. Good. Good! Golem, deposit the container in my private laboratory, then resume regular duties. Morul, nice work with the golem, but I think we can make its language comprehension a bit more sophisticated; it's such a bother to have to make instructions so literal. Anyway, clean up this place, won't you? I'll be in my lab; see you tomorrow. Good night."

Some indeterminate time later, another voice broke through the fog of his daze.

"Mister Tosscobble!"

Of course it was Morul. They were still standing in the chamber, amidst the aftermath of Verona's summoning.

Milo didn't want to think about what had happened—he wanted to flee to his cell, where he was safe from such anathema that had invaded his mind, and could unsee the unspeakably vile thing Verona had done to it—but something the beast had said had become lodged in Milo's unfailing memory, and he simply had to explore it.

"What did it mean," said Milo slowly, "when that thing said that Verona 'might have been Lady of Murder'?"

Morul looked at him with astonishment.

"You don't know?" said Morul. He straightened himself and addressed the air, "Servitor! Fetch the biography!" A moment passed, and a book materialized in Morul's hand. He gave it to Milo. "A little bedtime reading for you."

The book was bound in soft leather—'twas a decent-sized tome, two-hands' width, or thereabout—upon the title page of which it read _'The Life and Adventures of Verona, Greatest of the Children of Bhaal, by Volothamp Geddarm, Esq.'_ Accompanying the title was a very good likeness of the master of the sphere, captured in lines of black ink.

* * *

AN: Another chapter for my loyal audience of two (three?) readers. If you feel like it, I very much appreciate reviews. If you don't, that's all right as well.


	4. Orthogonal

The battle was fought and finished.

Amelyssan the Blackhearted, once High Matriarch and Deathstalker of Bhaal, later traitorous aspirant to her dead Lord's seat of power, lay broken before her throne. Rivers of golden ichor flowed from her body—once so very striking in its malefic splendour, but now a grisly crisscrossing of long deep gashes, her divine flesh parted by impossibly sharp swords—pooling on the floor of the Throne of Bhaal, rivulets running over the edge, dripping into the abyssal depths below.

By decree of the Solar, the winged, metallic-skinned, topaz-eyed, golden-armoured servant of the gods, the contest was over. Amelyssan, she who presumed to be Lord of Murder was defeated, and now the choice belonged to the sole remaining heir to Bhaal's divinity, Amelyssan's conqueror Verona.

"Your destiny is upon you, godchild," spoke the Solar. "Your brothers and sisters who sought your father's power are defeated, and all the divine essences of the Lord of Murder have gathered here, at his throne of blood, which is now yours by right of birth and conquest. You are at a crossroads, godchild… think carefully on which way to choose."

"What are my options?" said Verona.

And the Solar said that Verona could choose to deny her blood and birthright: to give up the essence of Bhaal within her. The throne of blood would be destroyed, and all of Bhaal's evil taint locked away and hidden by the gods, and the Lord of Murder would never rise again. Verona would become mortal, no longer steered by Bhaal's dead hand, free from destiny's design.

Or, she could take up the mantle of her dead sire, and rise as a power among the planes, born anew as Lady of Murder. She would sit upon the Throne of Bhaal as the sovereign of her father's domain; she would be a god in name and fact, in power and responsibility.

But Verona waited with her decision. Instead, she swept her gaze across the abyssal plane, over the starscape that glittered in the distance, and set her eyes upon the distant light in the firmament. A few feet away was Bhaal's throne of blood—a column of light, perverse in its purity—there throbbing with familial power just within reach. And Verona was still silent.

In that long moment, when it seemed the fate of the universe balanced upon her choice, Verona's companions weighed in with their advice. "I be thinking," said Korgan Bloodaxe, the mighty dwarven warrior, "if ye be a god, 'twill be spoils aplenty for the rest o' us. So, quit yer girlish dithering, and say yes already." The drow Viconia, of the noble house DeVir, concurred: "The hargluk speaks truly, abbil. I see little cause for hesitation; choose wisely, and I might be your high priestess one day." Next to speak was the red-robed archmage Edwin Odesseiron: "There is no choice when such power is in the offering; take what is yours (and give unto me what I am long due, oh yes, long due indeed)." And then Sarevok, Verona's brother, dead by her hand but raised back to life to fight by his sister's side: "Godhood is there for your taking, sister; seize it, and become what you were meant to be!" Against this chorus stood a lone voice of opposition: Imoen, Verona's sister and friend since earliest childhood, along with whom she has learned magic and who had shared the road with her the farthest. "Is this really what you want, Verona?" said Imoen. "What Bhaal was is not what you are. I'll support you either way, but if you become Lady of Murder and all, I'll miss you."

"The time has come for your decision, Bhaalspawn," said the Solar. "What is your choice?"

A question in demand of an answer, a destiny about to be fulfilled.

Verona rose to the occasion. "I say no to my father's throne," she said. "No to the essence of Bhaal. No to divinity. I want to be mortal."

With those words, Verona sealed her fate: she was godchild no longer, but a mortal reborn.

She made a gesture and spoke a word, and they all rose into the air, given flight by will and magic, all the better to bear witness to the shattering of the throne of Bhaal. A single swing from the Solar's burning sword was all it took and the throne broke apart, to fall into the oblivion below, taking Amelyssan with it. A great wave washed over them, and Verona and companions were thrown onto the planar currents, soon to set sail for home.

Thus concludes the story of Verona, greatest of the children of Bhaal.

* * *

"She said no. She said _no_? _She_ said no!?"

"She _said_ no?"

"Silence your mocking tongue!"

Milo glared at Morul as the boy let him out of his cell. He'd been reading Volo's biography of Verona all night, which had caused him all manner of confusion and distress. His captor had been born of a god! She had reached such heights of wizardly might that Volothamp Geddarm—acquaintance of such august personages as Elminster Aumar, the Sage of Shadowdale, among others—ranked her as one of the most powerful mortals to _ever_ walk the realms! She had slaughtered her way past dragons, archmages, demon lords, and so many murderous siblings and would-be godlings that Milo had lost count, cutting a bloody swath of destruction through Tethyr as she did, fighting tooth and nail until she reached the throne of blood itself! And then she had refused to sit it! Said _no_ to her birth right! _Verona_ , of all people, had said no!

It was as if everything Milo knew had suddenly been thrown into doubt. He had to re-assess his conclusions about his captor's capabilities, psychology and motivations, and how they affected his situation. If experience was any judge, a side-effect of being in Verona's orbit was to have your entire worldview come crashing down around you about, oh, once every month or so.

One small consolation was that Milo could always amuse himself thinking about Verona running from giant spiders in Beregost.

After stepping out of his cell, Milo addressed Morul, "Well, do you have any insight to offer? Why did your master choose not to assume godhood?"

Morul gave shrug. "I never asked."

"I swear," said Milo in a mutter, "by the Lady and all her mysteries, I've had it with sheepish, spineless, incurious, obsequious—"

As if called forth by Milo's litany of disparagements, Verona arrived in a flash.

"Morul and Mister Tosscobble!" said Verona as the mouth of the magical portal closed behind her. "You're both here. Excellent. I was just going to—"

"Why did you refuse your father's godly throne?" said Milo. _To the hells with caution._

For once, the master of the sphere looked taken aback. Whatever else came of Milo's indecorum, that made it all worth it. In the space of time Verona took to decide whether to rebuke him for his rudeness, Milo examined his captor with new eyes.

Today, Verona wore casual robes of colourful make. Like people with the Illuskan look, she tended towards the tall and slender, and her demeanour suggested meekness and humility in all the ways her words and behaviour never did. Her face was open and heart-shaped, her eyes large and expressive and the colour of some pale yellow shade, and her hair an artless sweep of gold-blonde curls. Altogether, Verona had an innocence about her that was wholly incongruous with her character.

And she was young. Unreasonably, absurdly young. Milo knew well the vanity of wizards, so he had given this fact little thought, and it had been crowded out of his attention by other things. But now he noticed, and cursed himself for a fool for thinking it an illusion. According to Volo's book, Verona was born in the Year of the Bright Blade, merely twenty-two summers ago. Twenty-two years old! Even as humans reckoned things, she was barely an adult—younger than Milo even, by almost a decade, and seeing her now, looking as she did, swaddled in colour as she was, he could well believe it.

"Ah," said Verona. A brief glance to Morul, who recovered enough from his embarrassment to return a nod. "You know," she continued, "I'm always surprised when a wizard asks me that question. I really shouldn't be, since it has happened often—even from Edwin, who should know better—but I keep holding to the same assumptions. Well then, let's have this conversation now, and be done with it. Mister Tosscobble, you made a study of religion in preparation of becoming a lich; did you happen to read about the Time of Troubles?"

As far conversations with Verona went, this was going downright dandy so far. Milo had indeed read about that tumultuous period of recent Faerûn history.

"Yes," said Milo. "The gods were cast down from their high seats, made to walk the earth in mortal form. Though greatly reduced in power, they were still mighty, and they soon fell into fighting each other. The realms bled from their struggle, and many gods perished. Myrkul and Moander, Bane and… Bhaal."

"Quite right, however…" said Verona, and then began a chant-like recitation, "'When shadows descend upon the lands, our divine lords will walk alongside us as equals. The Lord of Murder shall perish, but in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny. Chaos will be sown from their passing,' so sayeth the wise Alaundo." A ghost of a smile graced her lips. "As my progenitor knew well, this was Alaundo the Seer, who spake the truths that became prophecy."

Milo felt the hairs on his gift of skin rise. "So Bhaal knew that he'd die. And you were one of his children, there to ensure his rebirth."

Verona regarded Milo for a moment before speaking again. "Indeed. Things didn't quite go as my dear father had intended. But that's accepted history, as is what followed, the bloodletting so aptly chronicled by Volo. But what interests me, and should interest any aspiring godling—listen well, Mister Tosscobble—is what caused the Time of Troubles in the first place.

"There is a power above the gods. Lord Ao the Overfather reigns as supreme over the gods as they reign over us. No one speaks of him much, because he has no clergy, and memories and written records about him have the curious tendency to fade away. Nevertheless… two gods—dead Bane and Myrkul—sought the source of all divinity, so they stole the Tablets of Faith, upon which the Overfather had written the powers and responsibilities of each deity. When Lord Ao discovered the theft, he called all the gods to him, and demanded the guilty step forward. None did. In his wrath, he stripped them all of their powers, and the Time of Troubles ensued. But why did he do this?"

A brief silence, and Milo realized he was meant to fill it. "Are you expecting me to answer that?"

"Please."

"I have a hard enough time guessing your motivations, never mind those of the gods and whatever stands above them."

Milo's statement elicited no response from Verona. She just looked at him as she had before—cordially and attentively—and she kept looking at him that way for a long moment that seemed to go on forever. Verona was often at her most eloquent when she said nothing, and now her silence made Milo feel very much like the small-minded insect she likely thought he was.

Eventually, mercifully, Verona stooped to speak again.

"I'll tell you then. Lord Ao made the gods flesh to remind them whence their authority derives: their mortal worshippers. The Tablets of Faith held no power, but in stealing them, the gods showed they had forgotten this. To wit, gods aren't mighty unto themselves, but by the sufferance of the rabble who pay them homage.

"So, I can understand why someone like my brother Sarevok—a more formidable warrior the realms have never seen—why someone like him would aspire to godhood. For all his undoubted prowess, Sarevok knows only one thing well: how to swing a sharp metal stick around. He's not unlike a barbarian chieftain, which is all what the gods really are, if you think about it, just in greater proportion. Similarly, I see why priests and clerics might dream of sometime rising to become deities—all their lives, they've been grovelling before the gods, begging them for scraps of their might—'tis the only concept of power their piety-poisoned minds can grasp.

"But why should wizards be content with such? We who command the very forces of reality, who dictate terms to the universe, whose power comes not from undeserved blood, dumb muscle or blind faith, but from our own sovereign minds, why should we wizards be satisfied with the paltry potency of mere gods?"

Inspiring as he found Verona's megalomaniacal declamation, Milo had to raise a point of protest. "Are you not forgetting Mystra, the goddess of magic, who wove the Weave from which all our magic springs?"

"I am not," said Verona, with the air of someone who had anticipated this exact question. "How goes your study of the spell I gifted you?"

The spell that let you do the impossible: use magic in an anti-magic zone. Alas, the complexity of the spell was commensurate with its reality-defying effect.

"I know that it belongs to the school of evocation, and that's about it," said Milo.

Something dangerous flashed in Verona's eyes, and she made an odd staccato movement—barely noticeable, but for Milo's unnaturally keen eyes—as if she had paused mid-action, only to resume a sliver of a second later. And then she sighed, and the tension went out of her. Milo was left with the oddest feeling that a moment of great peril had come and gone.

"Doesn't it ever tire you, being so cringingly timid?" she said. "I know it does me. Why don't we try something different, for a change? Perhaps you could scare up some logic from whatever passes for your brain nowadays? Tell me what the existence of this spell implies." (Or, as the implication seemed to be, _'Prove your mind is worth more to me than your body is as a test-subject._ ')

Milo had to force himself not to respond with a sarcastic rejoinder, and instead turned his mind to thinking. Given Verona's insistence that the spell was significant, within the context of a discussion of wizards and their reliance on the goddess of magic, a possibility occurred to him.

Raising his hand, Milo said, "A question. Does this spell work where the Weave is wounded, where magic is absent and not merely blocked as it would be in an anti-magic zone?"

Verona lips twisted into a smile. "It works in both," she said, to which Milo's conclusion followed,

"Then when the wizard casts this spell, he weaves a Weave anew—the tapestry will soon unravel, I think, but as long as it coheres, it supports the casting of other spells, even in places where magic is dead or blocked—an act of magical creation not of Mystra's doing."

Milo kept his hand raised, for he was not done.

"Furthermore, you said before that this spell was the 'least solution to the problem,' which I now understand to be a wizard's dependence on the gods. And that's your project to solve and the purpose of the planar sphere both."

Turning to her apprentice, who was himself listening in rapt attention, Verona said, "See Morul, I knew adding him to my collection would be worthwhile." Then, to Milo, "Do you think yourself ready for the higher mysteries, Mister Tosscobble? Follow, both of you."

After a short walk, they arrived at a chamber in the sphere Milo had not visited before. The space was like the interior of a large dome, and at its centre was an obsidian globe the size of an elephant. Arcane energies took shape around the globe and whizzed around it in tight orbits, casting the chamber in a dim light. At first glance, the floor, walls and ceiling of the chamber seemed uniformly dark, but upon closer inspection Milo noticed that it was an abstract mosaic of whorls and lines.

"This is where we held the graduation ceremony!" said Morul. "I was standing here, with Larz and Nara. Masters Teos and Williamson were there over by the globe, and Master Verona next to them."

It was a grander space than Oriseus's office, where Milo received his own Cowled Wizard credentials, that's for sure.

"This is the entrance to the sphere's true interior," said Verona.

Milo looked around. "I don't see a door." He looked to Morul, who seemed as lost as Milo.

"When we walk the planes," said Verona, "things are seldom so simple."

She rested her hand against the globe's surface, closed her eyes, and began a soft chant interwoven with the incantations of all schools of magic.

The effect was subtle at first. Just a breeze that tickled on the edge of perception.

Then the mosaic, previously so indistinct, began to come together into shapes, resolved almost to the point of recognition.

And then the floor, ceiling and walls fell away.

All around them was a vastness, multifarious in its extravagance. Milo could see verdant forests, and mountains that stretched up into the sky and beyond. There were oceans large enough to swallow planets, and chasms that seemed to go on forever into unfathomable depths. In the distance, he spied a gleaming city raised high upon a hill, and just below it, a world of marble disciplined into the shape of palaces aglow with splendour. Strewn about were windswept vistas of endless winter, lakes of fire and rivers of blood, battlefields upon which great armies clashed in never-ending wars. From the ramparts of a ruined castle, a mad ruler surveyed his dominion, a desolation as far as the eye could see. At the centre of a great web woven from strands of void and woe, a spider was attended to by a court of swindlers and lickspittles. This there was, and more, much more

"What is this? Where are we?" said Morul, his voice sounding so small in this place.

Verona was no longer chanting, no longer holding her hand to the surface of the obsidian globe, which instead now held the three of them in its orbit. Somehow they were at the centre of this totality, while at the same time floating high above it. Verona did not seem to have heard her apprentice's question, so Milo was moved to speak.

"This… I…" Such was his distraction he seemed to have been robbed of all his reason. But he marshalled his thoughts, and recognition trickled into his awareness. "I believe this is the planes we're seeing; the world tree of Toril."

Yes, he could he see it clearly now. The trunk was the material plane, somewhere within which was the planet Toril, which had a continent called Faerûn and a country called Amn, the capital of which was Athkatla, the city of coin. Misting around the trunk was the ethereal plane, the world of ghosts, and the plane of shadow, the dark reflection of the prime material. The tree had its roots in the inner planes—the positive and negative of the energy planes, and the air, earth, fire and water of the elemental planes—and from the trunk the outer planes radiated out in great branches, where both gods and devils dwelled.

"This is where we live," said Verona. Though she spoke quietly, her voice had a strange quality: rich in reverence, resonant with the tones of a sermon given in a grand cathedral, delivered by a high priest who declared judgment on all. "This is the province of Lord Ao, where all the gods we've ever known have their own fiefdoms. But this is not all there is."

Everything changed all around them, as if the sphere had rotated along a higher-dimensional axis. Instead of branches on a tree, now the planes spun on the rim of a great wheel. Within the wheel clustered the inner planes, which in admixture gave rise to another prime material—another world with countries and cities, where people milled about their daily lives. In-between the spokes of the wheel flowed currents of the astral plane, the road that goes everywhere, a great silvery expanse littered with the corpses of dead gods.

"Here, Lord Ao holds no sway. Tyr is not the god of justice, nor is Torm the divine exemplar of valour and chivalry; in this place, Heironeous the Invincible holds those offices, and he splits the responsibility of war with Hextor the Scourge of Battle. So no Tempus, and no Hoar or Helm, either; St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel is their Watcher and Doombringer in one."

A pause pregnant with expectation, which Milo complied to meet. "And here there is no Mystra and no Weave."

Verona continued to speak. "Enigmatic Boccob rules as this world's god of magic, but he can no more deny a wizard her spells than their deity of death can reap all the souls on this material plane. The native wizards tap into raw magic directly, without divine mediation; no need for a Weave, and all our spells work here as they do back home. Stranger still and stranger yet, if we turn our eyes to the hub of the great wheel, we find a city of doors, with portals leading everywhere in the multiverse. All gods are barred from entry by mandate of this city's protector: a lady wreathed in blades."

Again the sphere rotated, and a new planescape came to view, where the prime material floated in a boundless ethereal sea. Another rotation, and the sea was the astral plane, embedded in which were planes of dreary grey and utter black, as well as the mindscapes that formed from the thoughts of every sentient being on the material plane. Then another rotation, and another, and another…

Stretching out on all sides was a grand assemblage of cosmologies, the set of sets of worlds.

"These are just the collections of planes of which I have direct witness corroboration. I have heard tell of other existences, available only if you cross the Sea of Night on the great skiffs that can navigate the phlogiston 'twixt crystal spheres. Ancient lore has it that the illithids arrived on Toril on such vessels, fleeing the dim suns of their dying worlds. Though these sights may seem strange, they are actually close to home, with principles not too dissimilar from our own world. We can strike out a little… further, plot a perpendicular course you might say… and then things take a turn for the outlandish.

"I have seen in my divinations wondrous places, governed by rules we wouldn't recognize. One such place is a reality comprising a material world and a world of spirits, which is also their elemental plane, accessible perhaps via our plane of shadows. In that place, magic is more like a martial discipline, and its mages are sorcerer-monks specializing in one element at the exclusion of all others. That is except for one being, who brings all the elements into harmony within itself, and can therefore wield all of them at once. To think what I could do if I captured such a being…

"But if we delve deeply enough into the most fundamental laws of reality, if we tease apart contingency from necessity, we find that other modes of existence suggest themselves. Some teem with life, however queer in expression; others are visited only by death, with infinities of absence all 'round. The strangest world that I have yet glimpsed during my investigations consists of only a material plane. Oh, to imagine it! There, there are no gods and no magic, only nature's laws working themselves out… yet life finds a way. I suspect that if it were even possible to open a portal to that world, you would be trapped there forever. Do you know this concept I have been referring to?"

This was the first time since they had stepped into the sphere's interior that Verona had directly acknowledged Milo's existence. And while Milo did not know the precise answer Verona hoped for, he was very good at guessing.

"All possible worlds," he said. "The planar sphere is your gateway to all of them."

Verona graced him with a smile so heartfelt that Milo could believe everything would be all right between them.

"Infinite diversity in infinite combination," said Verona, looking into his eyes for a moment, and then letting her gaze wander off into the distance. "Do you still wonder why I said no to godhood, Mister Tosscobble?"

"No, I believe you've answered my question to my full satisfaction."

The silence that followed afforded Milo sufficient time to come to his senses.

He would be a fool to trust Verona's appearances, especially in consideration of what he had learned today. It turns out the Ancient Netherese were wrong: sufficiently powerful wizards are _not_ indistinguishable from gods; sufficiently powerful wizards are beyond gods by weight of infinities. Whatever Verona were really feeling as she looked out over the macrocosm arrayed before them, be it hunger, reverence, ecstasy or indifference, it didn't matter. What did matter was that Milo believed she might have it within her to achieve her ambition. By virtue of that belief alone, Milo couldn't conceive of fearing anyone as much as he did the master of the sphere just then.

It was Morul who eventually stirred himself from his stupor and broke the silence.

"Master, you mentioned that… uh… the room we were in was the entrance to the sphere's interior… But this is… Do you mean to suggest…"

"When we walk the planes," said Milo, in echo of Verona, "things are seldom so simple." He then spoke to her, gesturing at the vastness around them, "This is not a true image, is it?" ( _'…much like some of the other things you've shown,'_ Milo left unsaid.)

"No," said Verona. "But it is a reconstruction, not a pure fantasy. It will look something like this when all works as it should. To navigate the planes, the sphere requires part of a creature that can naturally move between realities; the more powerful the creature, the better. Some of this picture, and the pictures you've seen painted here, I've wrung from the demon heart we procured yesterday, after I fed it into the sphere's machinery. The Blood War spans many universes. Nevertheless, much remains to be done until the sphere is fully functional once again."

She turned to the obsidian globe and placed the palm of her hand against its surface. When she did, the planescapes blurred out, and the three of them were back in the dimly-lit dome in the planar sphere, standing on the darkly mosaicked floor as before. If there had been a moment of warmth earlier, it had left Verona by then, for she gave Milo and Morul a look that promised that she was no more forgiving of their flaws now that she had taken them into her confidence.

He could live with uncertainty no longer. "And what becomes of me?" said Milo. "How do I fit into all this?"

At first Verona seemed sincerely puzzled at the question, as if the concept of taking into account any perspective other than her own was unfamiliar to her. But the confusion didn't last long, and she took on her usual habit of haute amusement.

"How and where you fit or not, Mister Tosscobble, is entirely your choice. I find that people fit easily into categories. There are those who are friendly, and those who are not. Those who are powerful, and those who are not. Those who are useful, and those who are not. Why, there are even those who are such that others would go to great lengths to save them if there was even the slightest chance they were in danger… and then there are those who are not. It would behove you to contemplate which categories you fit, how you fit into them, and with respect to whom."

Verona then vanished into thin air, as she was wont to do when she had nothing more to say, leaving Milo and Morul to figure out their place in the grand scheme of things.

* * *

AN: I have now written a detailed outline for the remaining chapters of this story. Readers should expect somewhere around three to four additional chapters (perhaps five), and then Milo's tale will have been told.

I am however in some need of feedback. In vain I have prodded people in meatspace to read and critique, and I have been denied. So I reach out to you, my hordes (I wish!) of loyal readers: if anyone should be interested in being a beta reader for this story (both retroactively and/or proactively, their choice), please send me a PM and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

The spell Verona and Milo were talking is not something I invented, but exists in a sourcebook. Kudos to Dungeons and Dragons nerds who might have known what spell I was referring to.

Thank you kindly for reading.


End file.
